Our Secret
by Julia451
Summary: One-shot. When their future marriage is arranged, a young Mai and Zuko keep a closely guarded secret. Mai/Zuko Maiko


They were eleven when their parents informed them they were engaged. Unbeknownst to the two of them, it had been discussed for years, other candidates had been considered and discarded, and it was now tentatively settled. The rest of the process was explained to them (they were fortunate it was not as strict as it had once been, they were told). They had three years to get to know each other; if they found each other satisfactory, it would be finalized when they were fourteen, and (unless one of them violated the terms of the contract or committed a severe crime, granting the other the right to reject them), the marriage would take place when they were sixteen. They weren't together when they were told, neither had any idea how the other was taking the news, but it didn't matter – the option to say "No" would not be available until later; for now, they had no choice – especially since what the law allowed and what parents expected were two very different things...

Mai saw the way her parents glowed with ambitious ecstasy at the door she had opened for them, at the magnificent future they intended to obtain through her. She was their precious tool and ticket to social glory. If she could have rebelled with righteous indignation over being trapped in a match she hated, it would have been a relief. The thought that they had chosen the one and only boy she would have chosen herself was unbearable. She would rather die than let them know how much she would have wanted the match... not when they had made it for such disgusting reasons. She took the news with her customary scowl and sigh, careful not to let a single smile, blush, or exclamation betray her. As she walked stiffly away, she heard her mother groaning about how her daughter would ruin everything within a week and her father frantically assuring her that they wouldn't lose this opportunity no matter how difficult Mai made it; she relished every word.

Zuko's father explained the arrangement to him in the bored, frustrated, but controlled tone of one impatient to get a tedious formality over with. When he was finished, he dismissed the prince almost immediately and told the guards to tell the Generals they could enter now. Uncle Iroh escorted him out, beaming widely as he told him how he and Mai would make a fine couple some day, how lucky he was to be such good friends with his intended already, and that they had nothing to be nervous about, that they shouldn't worry that anything would change anytime soon. Zuko would have smiled back if Azula, who had been present for the announcement as well, hadn't been walking beside them and staring at him with That Look. He was full of questions he hadn't had time to ask his father, but something made him wary of talking in front of Azula. He simply repeated, "Whatever you say, uncle," until he was safely alone in his own chambers.

They saw each other the next day. It was the first time Mai had come to the palace without being summoned by Azula. She enjoyed the thought; she was sure Azula wouldn't. The look the princess gave her as Mai passed her in the entrance hall confirmed that. Mai held her gaze, deciding boredom was the safest mask to wear right now. Azula followed her at a distance so that she had to meet Zuko with the same expression.

They were told they had the whole garden to themselves today. They walked side by side around the paths without saying anything, hardly ever looking at each other, unable to take a step without feeling hidden eyes were watching them from behind every tree and inside every bush and shadow. Mai imagined with delight how horrified her parents would be by the report the chaperones patrolling the paths a few yards away from them would bring tonight. To her surprise, this didn't make her forget her frustration that she couldn't talk with Zuko properly about this.

Zuko, naturally, wasn't even bothering to hide his own frustration. Mai eventually stopped dead in her tracks and gave him a warning glare. He kept his face calmer as they started walking again. When they reached a relatively open area that didn't afford much cover for eavesdroppers, he leaned over in Mai's direction and whispered something in her ear. She nodded without a word.

That night, Mai's parents were livid about how displeased they'd heard the prince had been during their outing. _With his nosy sister, not with me_, Mai thought; she didn't feel like enlightening them. At the same time, back at the palace, Azula passed by Zuko's room, telling Ty Lee at the top of her voice how upset Mai had been about being forced to spend the day with her future husband. Zuko resisted the urge to disillusion her.

The next day, Mai didn't even mind her mother's gasp of joy when the prince's palanquin arrived for her. She joined Zuko behind the curtains where no one could see them and let the bearers carry them along so that no one could get close enough to overhear them.

Once they were a few blocks away from her house, Mai took one last cautionary peek outside the curtains, let them fall closed, and asked, "So, whose idea was this?"

Zuko seemed taken aback by the question. "I... I don't know," he answered. "Dad said the Council advised him he ought to start thinking about a match for me because I'm the heir to the throne and that I better not make any unnecessary fuss about it. I didn't ask him if they picked you or he did... or why."

"Why not?"

"I didn't care," Zuko answered automatically. He realized what he'd said and quickly asked, "Did your parents have anything to do with this?"

Mai generously ignored the careless confession and answered, "I know they couldn't be happier about it, but I don't know what they did. They didn't tell me how this happened, either. Why should they? I don't need to know that. All I need to do is be a good girl and not spoil their chances."

"So, you didn't..."

"What?" Mai asked him, confused.

The prince looked away from her as he answered, "Well, since I'd never talked to my dad or uncle or anyone about it, or asked... I thought maybe _you_ had asked _your_ parents if... I thought it might have been _your_ idea."

Mai gave into her urge to smile (only half-way, though); there was no harm in letting him know after that. "No way," she assured him. "I assumed, since you're the prince, _you_ got to make the choice."

"I did... I mean, I _would_ have... would you?" he asked suddenly.

Mai crossed her arms and leaned back against the cushioned seat before she sighed and answered, "Yeah... that's the problem. If my parents ever find out, they'll be unbearable." Zuko imitated her posture (she noticed the motion brought him significantly closer to her) as she continued, "I don't want them to know I like being betrothed to you."

To Mai's surprise, Zuko closed his eyes and said, "I don't want Azula to know, either."

"How come?" Azula's teasing would be unpleasant, naturally, but nothing she was afraid of.

"I don't know, I just don't want her to," was her new fiancé's only explanation. "It's... it's not safe." He said it instinctively, not bothering to fully examine what he meant.

Mai pondered that last statement as she pictured Azula's jealous glare whenever Mai let her attention wander from their game to the prince passing by, her triumphant laugh as she tricked Zuko into tackling Mai into a fountain, her jokes about what a wimp her brother was for continuing to miss his mother, her own natural instinct to meet the princess' taunts of "You like Zuko, don't you?" with a shield of indifference. She finally asked sarcastically, "Should we go through with this then, or wait three years and back out?"

Zuko shook his head and looked right at Mai as he declared, "No way! I'm not scared of Azula! I'll marry you if you marry me."

Mai allowed herself her first full smile in days. "Deal," she said.

Zuko smiled back and asked, "What are we going to do about your parents?"

"What are we going to do about Azula?" asked Mai.

"I don't know. She'll find some way to ruin it, like she ruins everything," Zuko said, frowning.

"So will my parents," said Mai, picturing the incessant questions she'd have to face, the constant pestering for details, the relentless lectures on proper behavior and etiquette and manners and her duty to her family that she'd have to endure for the next five years. It wasn't fair! This engagement should belong to her and Zuko and no one else, but her parents treated it like it was their property, their project. She didn't want them touching it in any way. But how could she keep them out?

_It doesn't matter_, she tried to reason with herself. Y_ou have to share your engagement with everyone else in the Fire Nation – what's two more people?_ Yes, she and Zuko were now the property of everyone in the country to gossip and speculate about. Everything they now did together would be everybody's business. The thought made her too angry to speak.

Zuko put her feelings into words: "I wish she didn't know! I wish no one knew except us, that it could have just been our secret."

That last word started the wheels turning in Mai's head. By the time the palanquin dropped her off at her door, they had a plan.

As Mai predicted, the Fire Nation eagerly embraced its new piece of entertainment. For about a week, they were able to indulge in the fun of rampant speculation about how the young prince was getting along with his new fiancée. The sport began to lose its appeal, however, as reports of the two began to spread.

The reports never varied. The young couple were the picture of stiff propriety, boredom, and simmering hostility. Whenever they met, they bowed and exchanged the standard formal greetings with no emotion and no variation. They went about the city or the palace grounds as gravely as soldiers scouting enemy terrain, never touching, never smiling, and never speaking about anything but the weather, the latest news from the war front, and new arrivals or promotions at court. The prince would always buy something for his lady or pick her a few flowers, and she would thank him and take them like a child gritting their teeth before swallowing some horrible tasting medicine. He looked the same way whenever he told her she looked nice today, for which she always thanked him. They asked what time it was every ten minutes. They never looked at each other without eyes narrowed into a glare of repressed frustration and disappointment and always walked as if they wanted nothing more than to escape the other's presence. When the time came to part, they would bow and say good-bye in the same ceremonious way, make plans for their next meeting, and say they were looking forward to it while sounding as if they felt the exact opposite.

Their behavior never varied whether they were out on their own or at a dinner or other formal occasion at the palace. In such public gatherings, the short intervals they spent together were few and far between. Some swore they spent the exact same minutes together, apart, and together again every time, as if they'd deliberately made a schedule to balance the time they could bear being together with fulfilling expectations. They were perfectly polite to each other. They sat next to each other without hesitation or a murmur of complaint. Whenever some noble complimented them on their good fortune, they eagerly agreed and thanked them. Sometimes, they even walked about arm in arm, looking straight ahead, taking turns making observations without responding to the other's, and letting go with smug smiles at how much they'd been able to endure without breaking.

Occasionally, it was heard that one had snapped at the other, but they never parted angry. They went on with their meal or down the street or through the park in silence, trying to ignore each other, until they left to return to the palace or her house. The one who snapped would then bow and apologize and be readily assured in the same monotone that all was forgiven. They were never anything but perfectly cordial and courteous when within sight or earshot of either of their homes. If one said or did anything that could be construed as hostile at a public gathering, the other completely ignored it.

Opinions of the young couple varied. Young women spoke of them with pity for the children who were trapped in an arranged marriage they so obviously hated – whatever political reasons their parents had for the match must be highly important to make them put so much apparent pressure on the two – and praised them for having the fortitude to go through with it, however reluctantly. Young men laughed about it and placed bets on how long until one or both of them ended up in some scandalous affair. Parents held them up as an example of duty and obedience for their own children who stubbornly refused to accept their own match as quietly. Newly married and betrothed couples fought when he took Prince Zuko's side because that girl clearly wasn't good enough for him and she took Mai's side because the prince clearly wasn't good enough for her. Older men and women who had seen the same thing too many times to count didn't care, and eventually, the rest of the nation followed suit. An engaged couple who loathed each other was too common to hold anyone's interest for long, especially when they insisted on submitting to it so heroically.

Azula grew bored with her brother's engagement more quickly than anyone else. She had always suspected he and her friend harbored feelings for each other, but, evidently, the increased exposure to each other had nipped any such feelings in the bud. She wasn't surprised – who could be attracted to a pathetic nothing like Zuko? She was disappointed for awhile, however; mutual dislike wasn't as useful to her as mutual or even one-sided attraction would have been. There was no weakness she could exploit now, only an animosity she could potentially use if she ever needed one as an ally against the other. Well, she'd have to settle for that and keep her eye on them for other vulnerable points. She was confident that she could find them and left Zuko and Mai to make each other miserable; she had to admit it was nice watching other people do that for her.

Even Mai's parents soon stopped harassing her about her behavior once it was clear she had no intention of outright rebelling against or deliberately sabotaging the match. They seemed to find it completely natural (and irrelevant) that she and her future husband would dislike each other (what married couple didn't, after all?) and perfectly acceptable for her to be nothing more than reluctantly civil with him. True, they would have preferred if the prince had been more pleased with her, but as long as he seemed willing to go through with the marriage, they felt secure enough not to risk upsetting the precarious situation with ill-timed advice or pressure.

Mai vowed that if her parents ever showed the slightest hint of concern for her happiness, she would drop the act and tell them the truth, but no such hint ever came. She didn't mind. What had started as a survival technique had become an exciting game. Mai wasn't merely relieved that they had protected themselves from Azula's teasing and scheming. She liked playing a joke on the world. She liked fooling everyone with their performance. She liked the challenge of keeping a secret from so many people. She liked playing the role of a helpless girl forced into an arranged marriage against her will so flawlessly. She liked to think of everyone in the Fire Nation believing she and Zuko were arch enemies, never suspecting what they really meant to each other. Everyone knew they were engaged; no one knew they were in love. It was a rush to have a secret that no one but she and Zuko could share.

They had two rules: no one must ever know, and that rule must nonetheless never stop them from enjoying it. They liked having to steal quick kisses behind the curtains of the palanquin, in small blind spots among the bushes and trees in the garden, in the shadows behind pillars in the palace, before breaking apart as quickly as possible, as if it would be a crime to get caught. Mai couldn't fathom how other girls could stand letting everyone see them with their hands and lips all over their lovers on street corners, in restaurants, or under trees – how could they bear to share something as rare and valuable and precious as love with strangers? They liked communicating across crowded rooms and streets with secret hand signals that seemed innocuous to everyone else but, to them, meant the things they couldn't say out loud. They liked the way they had to surreptitiously touch each other's hands while handing each other things, as quickly and vigilantly as thieves snatching fruit from a stand. They liked the moments they would "accidentally" brush against the other's arm or shoulder and back away before anyone could notice. They liked slipping tiny notes to each other and burning them as soon as they'd read them, as if their lives depended on the contents never being known. Mai wondered if this was the same rush people got from having an affair. That was what they were doing, wasn't it? She was having an affair with her fiancé! The excitement the conspiracy gave them could not be measured.

Mai especially liked complaining to her parents about being forced to spend another day with the prince and hearing them order her to be a sensible girl and all but kick her out of the house. She liked coming home and hearing them praise her for conducting herself so well and brag to their friends about how they'd raised their daughter to behave like a proper young lady. She would lie in bed some nights and regret going so easy on them – what a nightmare of worries and anxiety and humiliation she could have caused them by being openly affectionate with her future husband, breaking all the stiff, prim rules of etiquette they expected her to obey as zealously as they did... Most nights, however, she lay in bed and laughed over how clueless they were, imagined how scandalized they would have been if they knew her true feelings, the warnings she would have had to suffer through, and rejoiced that she had escaped them.

Zuko's favorite scheme was the time he'd bought a jade bracelet from a crowded jewelry stand and hidden it in his room for weeks to be sure no one would remember selling it or seeing who bought it. When Mai came to the palace for the annual Fire Festival, he slipped her one of their notes as they ended their first round of walking about the room together, scowling at each other. It simply said "the edge of the fountain facing the pond." After the banquet was over, Mai put on a pathetically unconvincing show of feeling faint and needing air. Her fiancé eagerly encouraged her to step outside without offering to accompany her. Mai thanked him and blushed as she failed to conceal her sigh of relief at getting away from him. Inside, however, she gloated over how everyone at the table instantly began whispering among themselves and shook their heads and "tsk"-ed at that act and blush and sigh and all they saw in them. Once alone, she gradually made her way over to the fountain and bent down to smooth out the hem of her dress when she'd reached the side the note had indicated and reached down under the edge. Her hand hit a small paper package.

When she saw the prince a few days later, he asked her, in an accusing tone, where she'd gotten the bracelet she was wearing. Her eyes were full of malice and her wrist trembling as if it ached to throw a knife in his face as she answered that her uncle had sent it to her. He crossed his arms, said, "Hmph," and walked along as if she wasn't there. It was the first day they parted in open hostility, without going through the motions of making up.

Word of the prince's jealousy and Mai's audacity started with the servants and spread quickly. Suspicions ran wild. Pity and sympathy for Mai combated with pity and sympathy for Zuko and contempt for the unknown side of the triangle. Mai continued to wear the bracelet, and the prince acted as if he didn't see it. When Mai's parents finally heard enough to drive them to stop dismissing it all as idle gossip and confront her about it, however, she was ready to answer, "What bracelet?" It never appeared again, and many began to doubt it had ever really existed. Her and Zuko's interaction was what it had always been, and the story was ultimately dismissed as fiction, despite leaving an undercurrent of uncertainty that would never go away. Whispers about who had or would have given Mai the beautiful gift persisted; Zuko feared he would ruin everything as it became more and more difficult to stop himself from bursting into laughter whenever he heard them.

They both loved the looks of amusement, pity, and fear that followed them everywhere they went together: amusement because domestic discord was just amusing, pity for their evident suffering, and fear of the inevitable explosion that threatened to get bigger the longer it was delayed. They loved seeing how nervous and awkward people became around them. They loved the way some valiantly tried to steer them apart at feasts and parties. They loved remembering that nobody gained any amusement from them or their relationship, only from a fictional story they had written for them. They didn't need to care what anyone said or how they viewed the couple Mai and Zuko put on display for them. It was just a distraction that they had made thoroughly successful. They'd taken the bait, and Mai and Zuko were free to enjoy their greatest treasure without fearing anyone would find its hiding place. Their love was for no one else's amusement.

As they got older, they carried out their affair with more daring. They didn't burn their love letters any more but hid them under floorboards and behind loose bricks, along with the gifts they secretly sent to each other – knives, jewelry, books, small clay figures, and stones carved into interesting shapes. They snuck out of their rooms at night for short meetings in dark alleys, concealed by long, hooded, black cloaks. They slipped away alone at parties, met in stairwells and closets, and snuck back before anyone realized either of them had gone. They never did anything more than talk, kiss and embrace; even if they'd been old enough to want to, the self-imposed danger of getting caught and the thrill of escaping undetected made such meetings exciting enough without more. They thought with something close to glee that, if they did do more before they were married, no one would ever even consider remotely suspecting it. The very idea would be preposterous, absurd, impossible, completely outside the realm of reality. They had found the foolproof way of protecting their privacy: giving no one the impression there was anything in it to interest them.

Mai's fourteenth birthday came; Zuko's would follow in six months, and their engagement would officially be finalized and their marriage guaranteed in two more years. They enjoyed watching the suspense around them as their audience speculated whether or not they would stand up to their parents and ask to call it off. Mai's parents had long since decided that she didn't care one way or another about her betrothal and only complained to spite them, and they had counterattacked by trying to prove _they_ didn't care, either, never bringing up her engagement or her fiancé at all anymore; Mai silently congratulated them on their fraction of a fragment of insight and reveled in her new peace and freedom at home. Zuko relished the triumph of outsmarting Azula every time he heard her gloat over his misery. The game had been more successful and more fun than they had ever expected, and they eagerly plotted how they would continue to keep their secret and what else they would get away with over the next two years.

Neither of them had any idea just how important their game would turn out to be.

Mai had never been more glad of how well they had kept their secret than she was the day her parents received the official notice from the Fire Lord about her former fiancé's fate. She was spared the ordeal of listening to empty words of comfort or reassurance, lectures against dwelling on him, orders to forget about him and move on, and scoldings for refusing to do so that no doubt would have come had they known the truth. She was safe from any suspicion of mourning her loss more than they wanted her to. Oh, her parents mourned, of course – seeing all their hopes, dreams, and plans of the past three years shattered before they had ever been realized had devastated them in a way Mai never thought them capable of feeling. She left them free to deal with it however they saw fit. She was relieved they left her alone, as well, untroubled by any worries that their daughter was harboring any undesirable feelings for the banished prince.

The success of their game protected Mai after Zuko was banished. She was protected from her parents' suspicions. She was safe from much teasing by Azula. She was spared the horrible thought of the nation gossiping about a brokenhearted girl pining for her love. She was safe from looks of contempt for a girl who loved the disgraced prince and from unwanted looks of pity for a girl who had lost her lover. In the weeks that followed the critical Agni Kai, she wondered if this was what she and Zuko had been preparing for all along – for the time when they would be separated, when the world would turn against one of them and they would need a secret ally, when they needed an edge against their enemies. Had they both known all along, deep down, that it was too good to last? They must have. Their game had been a precaution for the time they both knew would come. Their secret gave them an advantage.

How long would the game go on? Mai wondered. As long as it needed to. They had held out this long; they could hold on until the end, when they would win.

Until then, the show must go on.


End file.
